Insight

These two terms sound "buzzy" and get used interchangeably, but they are not just more corporate jargon, they mean different things and serve different purposes. Mixing them up early in a project can send you down the wrong path before a line of code has been written.

• POC (Proof of Concept): A quick build to show that something is technically possible. It is intended for internal stakeholders, not end users, and it does not need to be fully functional, just enough to demonstrate that the concept can work. The only question it needs to answer is: can this be done? When Swinburne University needed to anchor a government grant tender with a compelling digital concept, we produced an interactive design to make the vision tangible for the assessors. Not a working product, but enough to show what was possible.
• MVP (Minimum Viable Product): The smallest version of your product that a real user can get genuine value from. Think of it as a vertical slice of the full solution: one complete feature working end to end, rather than all features built at reduced quality. When Better Health Network needed to communicate the merger of three community health organisations, waiting for the full site was not an option. Patients needed clear information immediately. We launched a focused information mini-site first, solving the immediate problem while the full site was built behind it.

The common problem with both: Feature creep. Once something starts taking shape, the temptation to add more is hard to resist. It is human nature to worry that what you have built is too rough or incomplete. The result is clients ending up with something smaller than the full solution, but not nearly small enough to qualify as a POC or MVP.

The test: When a new feature is proposed, ask whether it is required to solve the core problem. If the POC or MVP works without it, it is a nice-to-have, not a must-have. It goes on the backlog, not the current build.

Getting this right before development starts is exactly what a discovery phase is for. It means you are not making these calls under pressure once the build is already underway.

Still have questions? Give us a call, book a quick meeting, or send us a message to understand more without any pushy sales tactics.